Most romantic thing... ever...

I recently attended a full day workshop conducted by my spouse’s company. The purpose of this yearly ritual is that the wives spend the entire day meeting up with the spouses of other members that your spouse spends at least ten hours a day. Simply put wives meet other wives.

This year the HR had a surprise in store for the wives. Apparently they had got each member to record a short video message for their wife which was then played on a large screen. Here I must add that we spend the day away from the spouses, who anyway are busy planning and strategising on the other side of the wall.

There were more than hundred messages that were played. Some were very sincere, some reeked of falseness. Some were so long that you lost track of where they started, some were short and to the point (those husbands I am sure are going to face this question ‘could you not think of more to say?’). 

This is mainly what most husbands had to say …

“she gave up her dreams so that I could fulfill mine”…  Now really!!! If you are the one who believes in this I must add you are a selfish, arrogant person. Togetherness should be where both work towards achieving their respective dreams. If your wife gave up her job and followed you without a single word or if it makes you happy to live your dream at her expense then you have to look at your relationship carefully. Maybe she has pushed the frustration under the carpet where you cannot see.

“she can cook up a meal in half an hour, and mind you not such any meal, a full delicious meal”… I must admit here that at this point I started to seriously think what my husband was going to say because kitchen is my least favourite place in the house and no way have I cooked up a full meal after spending a day out. I have no problem with a husband, who loves his wife mainly because of her culinary abilities, I am just glad he is not my husband.

“she looks after the kids and handles it all, allowing me to concentrate on my job full time” … my only question to such people is that if the job was going to be the most important part of your life needing all your attention, why have kids? You as a father are not helping your kids to create wonderful memories of a family. They need to remember seeing you both at the PTA, annual day and helping them with school work. 

I have traveled and lived in different cities with my husband but never without getting upset. Slowly adjusting to a new environment with his help. I have voiced my concerns (very) vocally and we have together thought of ways to make each transition easy. We have gone over various options for my job too and each time I have found something interesting and fruitful to do. We have handled all the joys and pains of raising two wonderful, independent and highly opinionated kids together. 

And I was so touched that instead of resorting to these options of making me sound like a wonderful person who has never argued or sulked about a transition or insisting on sharing responsibility for kids or a sacrificing martyr (which would have been a lie), he said the most wonderful thing – “…We have literally grown up together. The thing that I most appreciate and am thankful to you is that you taught me (and our daughters) the love for reading and books…”

And for me this is the most romantic thing he has ever said.